News

Wood BOE to discuss athletic facilities

February 21, 2013

PARKERSBURG — When the Wood County Board of Education meets next week to look at funding repairs to athletic facilities, particularly Parkersburg High’s Stadium Field, President Tim Yeater said ther......

Comments

hannahROSE

Why does an area this size need three football fields/stadiums? Careful scheduling at one state of the art stadium could likely accommodate the area's schools's events. Suggestion: upgrade Erickson; I-77 provides access from all areas.

Whitney

Wow...delusions of grandeur? I think so! The board didn't give $200,000 to South and Williamstown...but YES they will write you a $900,000 check becuase you are so special. The last fix was temporary and everyone knew it. Now...fix it properly yourself.

compet

A couple of thoughts.. Tim Yeater WAS spot on...the BOE does have a responsibility to provide safe facilities to the school. Jim Fox should NOT be recused. Any child of a BOE member is not receiving a monetary benefit from playing in a safe venue. He should be involved in this process. Since 1915 the BOE has allowed volunteers to take care of stadium issues. However, the cost of stadium renovations has increased dramatically and they have a duty to be involved. They need to do a review of all 3 PUBLIC stadiums and see what is needed to be safe and up to code...then find a way, through a bond or otherwise to see to it that these for 3 high schools are adequate. Any extrafacilitie's should be privately funded. PHS should lean on its athletic director alums for insight...Shane Lyons (Alabama) and Craig Walkup (Ohio) surely help out.

vortex

When they were trying to build Erickson Stadium the Wood BOE did not want to help out. “Raise your own money if the need is there”. Now that it is Mighty PHS that needs a Stadium the story has changed. Let’s do a bond levy and throw South and Williamstown a carrot and let’s spend Millions on PHS.

GregBailey

ONCE AGAIN...A state or locally-chartered Bank of Parkersburg could have loaned the money, utilizing the power of fractional reserve lending. Then, the loan is simply repaid to the bank. If we had this kind of system that North Dakota already uses, then we would not even have meeting after meeting and article after article.

Erickson would have been funded with the loan. Stadium Field could be funded with the loan. Williamstown could be funded with the loan. There would have been no questions and no arguments about the issue.

It's simply time to utilize what the banks already do for the good of the people.

MrSmith

1.) Board member Jim Fox has a kid who plays football at PHS. Therefore, Mr. Fox should recuse himself from any further participation in decisions related to the PHS stadium.

2.) The people involved need to leave fantasyland and step into the real world. You can't have a new stadium AND have it ready by August AND have it constructed to maintain the "tradition" of the current stadium.

3.) The PHS turf is 10 years old. My recommendation, bulldoze the entire thing, and build a new facility that will be less costly to maintain in the future. Deal with the ramifications and scheduling issues as they arise.

voyager65

I think it is amazing that last year PSHS and Williamstown asked for money that totalled $205,000 and the board declined to give them the money. They did spend $35,000 at both schools. Now, you have PHS asking for $900,000 and all of a sudden the comments from the board are we need to help take care of our athletic facilities. I know PHS has their facility shutdown, but there needs to be some consistency. The article in yesterday's paper said there was one board member willing to write the check at that meeting. I think that if they are going to do this for PHS, they need to look at what they can do for the athletic facilities at PSHS and Williamstown as well.

AaronL

Provide services for education,Athletics secondary. Yeater must have had use of the one collective braincell that night. Now if he could get the talking head to pull the astro turf from Stadium and put it on Erickson and use that one until funds are raised to rebuild Stadium,if it must be done.